Posts Tagged ‘home alone’

My little Colombian princess went to the movies last night with her Daddy. Bedtime was delayed almost two hours from the usual schedule! This little girl sleeps 10 1/2 to 11 hours EVERY NIGHT! It is God’s little gift to ME! But, as we have experienced, she doesn’t do well with LESS than 10 hours of sleep. Tiredness makes her moody and sassy. If there’s one thing this mama don’t want is more sass in the house. ‘Nough said.

This year is an adjustment to our whole household as son #2’s band class got moved to first hour at the local high school. Yes, we still homeschool, but homeschool marching band doesn’t exist so he goes to Wind Ensemble every blinkin’ morning at 7:45. Last year I had to wake up at 8:15 to get him to second hour band…. this year will be interesting, for sure.

More back story. Our little princess had a few previous issues with being left alone so we have made sure that she is NEVER by herself… ever. She is 11 years old and very responsible, but we wanted to make sure she always felt safe with us. This past summer is the first time I left her alone at the house while I took her brothers and their friends up to go swimming… two miles away. She rolled her chocolate eyes at me and assured me that she would be fine by herself with the dogs and chickens. She was. When I returned eight minutes later I asked her if she looked out the front window. “I did! Because I wanted to check if you were really going to leave me or not.” hahahaha.

Remember the slumbering princess this morning? Well, I decided to leave her having visions of sugarplums in her head instead of waking her up for the drive to school. This is the first time I have left her alone without telling her first. I put this note on the dirty bathroom mirror:

As I suspected, she didn’t even wake up until 8:55. But I forgot to take down the note. DOH! Thankfully I was talking on the phone and she knew I was there before she read the news of my abandoning her. Whew! Catastrophe averted.

Well, this was a first! Upon returning from a week away, there were two concentrations of gnats in the house. One by the fruit bowl…. not surprising, and the other in the kid’s bathroom upstairs??? The other noticeable “markings” were in my kitchen… bird poop on my kitchen counter, the print of a bird on the INSIDE of the window and two bent feathers to lend to the tale.

What in the world goes on when I’m away???? Did they leave the doors open and invite in the wildlife? Did the bird wander in because the swarm of gnats was so inviting??? I feel like I’m in Maui, at my sister’s house, with the plague of gnats. Okay, no, it’s not THAT bad.

Come to find out, some child of mine ate a banana and threw away the peel in the upstairs bathroom. Probably a week ago, because that’s when I left. It was a gnat smorgasbord! I have never seen that many gnats in a bathroom before, but then, I’m not in Maui.

Pinterest to the rescue again. Vinegar, dish soap and a bit of water in a little bowl collects gnats like flies to fly paper. It’s an amazing concoction that worked wonders right before my bloodshot eyes. I also hung up a curly fly strip IN my kitchen to aid in the death of the irritating little bugs. That was a first! Three hours later we are almost a gnat free zone again.

I did wipe up the bird poop, but haven’t made it to cleaning the window yet. There’s only so much excitement I can handle on my first day home.

For some strange reason, this past week my children asked if I got in trouble much as a kid. What brought on this bit of inquisitiveness, I’m not sure. Visions of grandeur danced through my head as I recalled various adventures that I could lay on ’em. Then I realized, no, I didn’t get in trouble that much because my older brother got in A LOT of trouble…. so I walked around the house telling my mommy, “I be good!” Over and over and over. And I was good. :o)

So this happy tale emerged after much prayer and supplication: my parents had vacated the house leaving my 13-year-old brother in charge of me (11) and our little sister (6). We decided to be helpful and empty the garbages from upstairs…. (with ulterior motives, for sure!)… so we could burn the rubbish in the fireplace in the family room. Fires are so exhilarating, especially when you’re home alone! My brother lit the matches and started the newspaper tubes that we had diligently rolled up just like Dad always did. We waited until it was nice and hot before we started adding the garbage…. which included: toilet paper tubes, kleenex, q-tips, junk mail, odds and ends…. AND…. an empty aerosol can of hairspray. OOOooooohhhhh!

We didn’t bother closing the little chain-mail curtain because we were still loading in the trash when it happened……. quicker than bottle rockets on the 4th of July, the can exploded and shot out of the brick fireplace. We were terrified! We ducked for cover! We shielded our heads and faces! We screamed like girls! The can hit the popcorn ceiling and then came to a smoking landing on the tri-level, multi-colored shag carpet, where it sizzled and then fizzled on the far side of the hide-a-bed couch (that I am the proud owner of to this day!)

We waited for it to cool down before we tried to pick it up, but it was sort of stuck to the melted carpet. My brother did pull hard enough to dislodge it and then I carefully trimmed the burned carpet to a uni-level, non-torched height. I remember the can leaving a mark on the ceiling, but I can’t remember how we covered it up. That was 33 years ago, okay?! I remember thinking that we could have put someone’s eye out with the shooting hairspray can, and we never repeated that fiasco. Safety first! Or at least second!

Reminds me of Back to the Future when Marty tells his 1950’s parents to go easy on their future son when he burns the livingroom carpet!

My husband, daughter and eldest son have been gone to California for three days of Disney and the beach. They will be home tomorrow morning… REALLY early while I’m still sleeping.

Wanting to try the other side of the fence where the grass is supposed to be greener, I lived these three days like THEY usually do when I’m gone. I didn’t clean a thing. The dishes stacked up 8 or 9 high. The groceries are still in the bags on the counter from shopping two days ago. We ate ice cream for dinner…. and peanut butter straight from the jar. (like cavemen) The kitchen table has everything on it that has been there since they left, plus the new things that Keeve and I added. And after this brief experiment…. I don’t get it. Being lazy is no fun. Why would anyone willingly leave the house to chaos? What’s the purpose? Tonight I stepped into their shoes again and cleaned everything until sweat ran down the sides of my head, just like when I was a little girl playing HARD! It wasn’t fun. It took a long time. It’s still not done. I still don’t get it.

I’m back to being a clean example for my family tomorrow. I think I’ll have to swear Keeve to secrecy. He was a trooper and dried dishes while I washed dishes…. from five days ago. I think every pot and pan was dirty. Gross. I don’t get it. Anyone?

OK, it’s not true, but my kids think that I know a song for every occasion and I didn’t want to disappoint them. Yes, I’m all by myself. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but ahhhhhhhh the feeling of no responsibility…. no children to feed…. no agenda… no guitar hero to listen to. Mother’s truly enjoy the simple things in life.

My husband went with our son Austin to the grade 5-6 trip to Disneyland. They left today after church and get home on Tuesday night. So it was supposed to be me, Larisa and Keeve. Two hours before church we got the distress call that the nanny couldn’t go to Disneyland for the teacher’s two little girls, so Larisa was called in for Disneyland nanny duty. (tough life) So it was supposed to be me and Keeve. But yesterday Keeve got invited to a Diamondback’s baseball game.. and for a sleepover… which turned into two sleepovers. Whoooo Hooooo!

I’m sure you’re wondering WHAT does a mother do for 24 hours of alone time? From church I went straight to Baja Fresh. Nothing sings freedom like grilled mahi mahi tacos. From there I drove to the Teacher’s Store because I had a coupon that expires today and there’s always things there that I need… like a planner for the Fall. But, much to my sheer shock… the store is closed down! The sign on the door said “Come visit our other stores in NM and UT.” Whatever.

On to the 99 cent store. (Where is the blasted cent sign on the keyboard?) They have sunscreen so I was all about that stop. Austin spent Friday on the lake and even though he looks like a lobster, I know he used up the entire tube of sunscreen that I sent. You can’t beat $.99 for sunscreen. And again, adding to my disappointment for the day… they no longer carry Sesame Oil! Heaven forbid! I’m going to have to pay Walmart prices now for sesame oil for Chinese Chicken Salad. Bummer dude.

On to TJ Maxx. This store was sadly unerstocked in every area I searched, with the exception of purses. Their purses ROCK, but I couldn’t justify two purse purchases in the same month. (But it’s June tomorrow!)

On to Marshall’s. Rock on at Marshall’s. I FOUND ZAZA’S PURPLE BUTTERFLY BEDDING….. ON CLEARANCE! If that isn’t a miracle I don’t know what is! Marked down from $75 to $36. It was truly a sign from on high that she is coming home soon and it was the heaven-ordained time to purchase her butterfly bedding. In the cart the quilt and pillow sham went. On to clothing. Oh my word. They actually had 8 bras in my size that I could try on…. truly the second sign from heaven in the same store. It almost washed away the anxiety from the teacher store closing. THEN there were multiple pants that I also loved… So, after trying on 19 items in the now over-heated dressing room, I had some decisions to make.

Rick’s manly voice of warning from this morning at the breakfast table came blasting through my mind, “Now don’t go all crazy buying clothes while I’m gone.” Brother. Like he’s tele-pathetic or something. We all know that “All crazy” means hundreds of dollars. And I knew with the current list of money-sucking activities in the next few weeks, Rick would not see the beautiful butterfly bedding as the sweet sign from God that I did. I’m sure Rick could find a blanket in the linen closet that he would think was perfect for Zaza’s bed. NOT Happening! So, I narrowed the purchases to a pair of pants that can be converted to capris (2 fer 1) and a bra. All necessities. How could he argue? (quite easily actually).

Sensing that my sugar levels were at an all time low from over-exertion in the dressing room, I refueled at Starbucks with a Double Chocolate Chip Mint frappuccino. I counted it as dinner. That’s a cheap dinner, even for Rick. Then again, no it’s not. Costco has a dog and a pop for $1.50. Anyway, I’m home and it’s eerily quiet around here. Maybe I’ll see if I can beat my guitar hero Hit Me With Your Best Shot score. NAH!

Blog Stats

489,254 hits

What’s the Deal with the Jar?

Welcome to My Sister's Jar. The story behind the blog lies in the original post on Feb. 2, 2008. Type "giddy moments" into the search box to find it.

I'm a homeschool mom who loves to speak and write, encouraging moms to press-on in motherhood. Two of my books are available NOW! Laughing in the Midst of Mothering and Laughing in the Midst of Marriage. See them at www.LindaCrosby.com or www.cbd.com.

I have four children, one of whom is adopted from Colombia, so there are LOTS of adoption tidbits here.
~~~~~~ Linda Ann Crosby